


make this love your own

by allthelight



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Light Angst, Light Character Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthelight/pseuds/allthelight
Summary: "And he realises right here that it will be the not knowing that will drive him mad. That if she were harmed, if she were… dead, then it might be possible to move on, to continue with life. But if they never find her, if they never know what happened, then he will spend the rest of his days looking for answers, not giving up until he passed from this world to the next and then he would continue his search there, never resting until he knew exactly what happened to the daughter he never knew he loved this much.”An AU in which Lyra goes missing and Asriel tries to find her again, and discovers a little something about being a father, in his own way.
Relationships: Lord Asriel & Lyra Belacqua
Comments: 2
Kudos: 83





	make this love your own

**Author's Note:**

> -this is purely indulgent, I have no excuse for it. I'm hoping it's mostly in character but it's 00:05 here so it's technically my birthday which means I'm just going to go for it and pray that it's alright
> 
> \- it's an AU but only because I think my characterisation is a bit off. Technically it could have happened in canon and if I'm honest I would probably put it in the same universe as 'all that never was' but they aren't related so you don't need to worry about it. 
> 
> \- I hope you enjoy!

The journey he has just undertaken has been long and arduous, and the only thing Asriel desires as he wearily walks between the buildings of Jordan College is a hot meal and his bed and he has every intention of acquiring both. Though it’s been a difficult task, his recent expedition has been fruitful and though he’s tired he’s in a considerably jovial mood. He even has something for Lyra in his bag, something he hopes will quell her usually incessant pleading about bringing her with him.

Usually there’s a shadow at his back, a feeling of a pair of eyes on the back of his neck that do not belong to any of the people he passes but that only comes from the rooftops above. Whenever he visits he always sees her out of the corner of his eye, jumping from roof to roof skilfully if not all that gracefully. His visits, no matter how spontaneous, never usually manage to escape Lyra’s attention.

There is no such shadow today.

It’s an irregularity. Not an unwelcome one but all the same, still irregular.

“Perhaps the girl has learned to stay off the roof,” Stelmaria comments as she walks beside him, looking to the roofs above them.

Asriel laughs. “Of all the things she has learned, I doubt following instructions is one of them.”

There’s a deep laugh in her throat. “Will we dine with her later?”

He hasn’t planned much further than food and sleep. “Perhaps,” is all he says.

A wide-eyed servant answers the door and turns white when he sees who it is. Their terrier daemon starts to quiver.

“My-My Lord,” the boy stammers. “We-”

“Fetch the Master, would you?” Asriel says, though it’s not a question but a command. “I shall see my own way to the retiring room.”

“Sir, that’s-”

Asriel interrupts him. “Now, if you please.”

“Yes, my Lord. Of course.” And the boy bows once before turning and running away, almost tripping over the legs of his daemon who seems as glad to be going in the opposite direction.

“He’s new,” Stelmaria says, watching them go.

“Yes, he appears to be.”

The older Asriel gets the younger these servants all seem to get. And more nervous. Still, he would rather the boy was nervous than if he was brave. It’s always easier to obtain things when people are frightened of you.

The retiring room is empty, and slightly dusty. Nobody has come in quite a while. Usually it is spring cleaned, furniture polished and fire roaring, ready for his arrival. He supposes he cannot complain, after all he told them he wasn’t coming for a few weeks yet. Stelmaria looks around, those keen ears and eyes listening and looking for any stowaways in all of the nooks and crannies. At Asriel’s questioning glance she shakes her head. They’re clear in here.

They wait ten minutes, then fifteen. At twenty Asriel begins to get impatient, and at twenty-five it rolls off him in waves. Asriel is by the window and Stelmaria paces in front of him. Neither of them has sat down yet and neither of them know why.

“Something’s going on,” Stelmaria says, ever the perceptive one.

“Mm?” Asriel turns away from the window. “Is there?”

“Yes. Something’s different. Nobody is behaving as normal.”

They are rarely here long enough to know what normal constitutes anymore but he does agree, it definitely feels as though they’ve arrived in the middle of something. The place seems quiet, but not in a lazy way, more devoid of life.

He frowns, his tiredness making his impatience greater. “There was nothing going on today, is there? Something we might have missed?”

At that moment the Master bursts in the door. He looks harried, and Asriel would go so far as to say unkempt. The robes are twisted, his hair is facing in all the wrong directions and when he comes to shake Asriel’s hand there is a certain quiver in it that has never been present before.

“My Lord,” he begins, and his voice wavers as his hand does. “We weren’t expecting you for a while yet.”

He puts on a face of apology. “I know it was supposed to be weeks until I arrived. I do apologise.”

“No apologies necessary,” the Master says. “It was just we only wrote to you yesterday, and we didn’t think, didn’t expect, that you would -”

Asriel’s eyes narrow and Stelmaria comes closer, tail flicking in a way that means she’s extra alert. “You wrote asking me to come?”

“Yes. We thought you were still in the North, sir, otherwise we would have written to your London address.” The Master looks at the floor, the twisting of his hands betraying his state of agitation. “Does this mean that you did not receive our message?”

The air grows thick. “I received no message,” Asriel says tightly. “I wrote to you telling you that I would be here in a matter of weeks. What was so important that it could not wait until then?”

The Master sighs, eyes sliding nervously to Stelmaria who has her teeth out. She would never attack him, it is not a characteristic of the snow leopard, but the man does not know that. The trickery of it always comes in useful.

“It’s Lyra, my Lord.”

 _Of course it is._ For a moment there he was concerned, worried that they may pull his funding or warn him that the Magisterium were coming to take away his research. He presses his hand to his head, stepping slightly away from the Master.

“I told you before that you may not tell her the full story,” he says, wishing the man would have listened back then. “Tell her whatever you like but certainly not the truth.”

“It isn’t that, my Lord-”

“Well what is it then? Is it discipline? Because surely,Master, a man of your great accomplishments could discipline a what? Ten year old girl?”

“It isn’t about discipline, either, though she certainly doesn’t have it in abundance.” Asriel doesn’t interrupt and the Master’s raven squawks into his ear. “Lyra is missing.”

“Missing?” At first it sounds unbelievable and he has to laugh. “You let the child have full run of the place, you shouldn’t be surprised when she doesn’t turn up at first call. Give her some time, she’ll be back soon.”

“That’s just the thing. We have waited and we have looked and there appears to be no sign of her.”

Asriel suddenly feels uneasy, and the facts slot together like jigsaw pieces in his head. “And exactly just how long has there been no sign of her?”

The Master takes a deep breath, seeming to grow older in the time it takes him to do so. “It’s been four days, my Lord.”

“Four days?” He repeats, barely able to hear himself over the blood rushing in his ears. “Have you informed the police?”

The Master has the audacity shake his head. “We didn’t know if it was sensible to publicise the fact that Lyra _Belacqua-”_ The Master places a great strain on her surname, “- were missing. It may have only led to more danger.”

Asriel feels his temper, an unreliable, ugly thing rear its head. “The only danger I can see here is that you have _lost_ the girl for which you are responsible, and not only have you lost her but you have failed to find her again. Anything could have happened to her.”

“We are all out looking for Lyra, my Lord,” the Master tries, eager to soothe. “We have tried all of her usual places but she just cannot be found, and as the days wear on we get more and more concerned about her wellbeing.” He looks at Asriel, imploring him to understand. “This is why we wrote to you.”

He feels as though he could wring the man’s neck, and almost goes to try before Stelmaria interrupts.

“Asriel,” she says, voice low but authoritative. “We must find her.”

It’s been four days. Anything less and they could have hope but four days… it’s highly unlikely that she’s simply gotten lost. He wanted to rest and eat and bathe, do all manner of things in his stay here. Now, thanks to the incompetence of others and the disobedience of one little girl, he will get to do none of them.

“We will find her,” he says, voice tight, about to snap. He goes to stride out of the room and as he passes the Master, he tells him, “I will deal with you later.”

-x-

“I don’t even know where to begin,” Asriel mutters, standing in the courtyard, looking up at the rooftops as if willing Lyra to appear. “Four days…”

“Maybe we should consider the possibility that she was taken,” Stelmaria says, brutally blunt in her delivery. “She was here for a reason.”

Asriel knows at once what she’s implying. “Marisa wouldn’t do this. It’s not her style. She’d waltz in and take her, yes, but she’s not brave enough to lure the child out and kidnap her in the night. She knows it would be the first place I would try.”

Marisa would make it seem as though everything is above board. She’s too clever for this blatant deception. No, for once it seems that the blame for this does not lie with her, at least not directly.

“Then it may be someone else,” Stelmaria suggests. “Someone who wishes to ransom her.”

“Ransom her for what?” Asriel bites out. “I have nothing. Not anymore.”

He has nothing to his name except a scandal and his work. _And Lyra_ his conscience tells him. _Lyra has your name._

There’s a feeling in his chest, something foreign and unwelcome. His fists clench at his side, unsure of what to do with themselves. Emotions are pointless, inconvenient things, and he has never thought that more so in this moment. If he were not feeling whatever this is then he would be able to find Lyra. His brain cannot focus, cannot forget everything like it usually does. It refuses to see this as another scientific problem, as something to be solved. It runs in circles of _what ifs_ and _buts_ and _if anything has happened to her…_

“Come on,” he says, voice cracking on the very last syllable. Where has this come from? Why can he not put it aside? “We’ll start at the river.”

-x-

He spends hours talking to everyone he can, people that he knows are acquainted with Lyra. They do appear apologetic when they say that they haven’t seen her, that they will keep an eye out for her and return her home if they find her. Asriel has no reason to distrust these people and so he believes them and lets them on their way.

He finds college servants looking also, half-heartedly calling Lyra’s name as if that will do any good. He hopes she appears, hopes that it really is as simple as all that. A lost child will be found again unless someone has taken them, hidden them away so that no amount of looking shall ever unearth them.

And he realises right here that it will be the not knowing that will drive him mad. That if she were harmed, if she were… dead, then it might be possible to move on, to continue with life. But if they never find her, if they never know what happened, then he will spend the rest of his days looking for answers, not giving up until he passed from this world to the next and then he would continue his search there, never resting until he knew exactly what happened to the daughter he never knew he loved this much.

It begins to get dark and still he trudges on. Stelmaria nudges at his side.

“We should rest,” she says. “We can begin again in the morning.”

“Tomorrow will be five days,” and if he were to really listen to himself he would be surprised at how broken he sounds.

“We won’t find her like this. We can start again when it’s light.” She looks up at him, blinking as if to say _you know I’m right._

“Very well,” he relents, and allows himself to be led home.

-x-

He cannot sleep.

Usually when he cannot sleep it is down to excitement, down to research that seems endlessly more important than basic human needs. He is not a man that allows worry to affect him so.

But tonight he cannot rest, cannot work, and he walks around the dark, empty hallways of the college he knows so well. For what? He doesn’t know, and if he were to be honest with himself he would hope that by some miracle Lyra would appear out of the shadows and say _I knew you’d be worried about me_ with that smile of hers that is so reminiscent of her mother’s that most of the time it hurts.

He finds the Master on his travels. The man stands at a window, raven on his shoulder, looking out into the darkness. Asriel joins him, standing shoulder to shoulder. There was a time when water covered it all, freezing water that numbed the toes but water Asriel knows he would walk through again to get Lyra to safety.

These are feelings he never knew he had, but now these are the feelings that sustain him.

“I trusted you to protect her,” Asriel says. He does not shout, does not raise his voice, but the malice in his hushed tone is palpable.

The Master heaves a great sigh. “We are all worried about Lyra.”

“Worry doesn’t keep her safe,” Asriel scoffs. “I gave her to your care on the understanding you would protect her and now look what has come of it.”

The Master turns to him and he looks even more tired than he did earlier but there is a certain fire in his eyes. “Jordan College is a place of learning. It is unsuitable for a child, and I told you that when you placed her in my arms ten years ago.”

“There was nowhere else for her to go,” Asriel tells him, but it sounds half-hearted even to his own ears. There is no anger it in anymore. “They cannot get to her here.”

“They can get to her anywhere, my Lord. Times are changing. One day we will no longer enjoy the protections we have enjoyed in the past.”

“And where does that leave Lyra then, mm? What becomes of her?”

The Master smiles sympathetically. “I do not know. She is your daughter, Lord Asriel. It is not for me to decide.”

He nods once and then takes his leave. Asriel and Stelmaria stay longer, looking out of the window into the night. Once flood water covered it all but now the ground can be seen again. Things are constantly changing.

There is no guarantee it will all be here tomorrow.

-x-

It is not him who finds Lyra.

They are combing the woods, Asriel and a team of servants. If he wanted he could wonder how the college was still functioning, with the number that are out searching for the girl. He doesn’t wonder. His mind has done what it always does and focused singularly on his objective: _Find Lyra. Bring her home._

“Lord Asriel!” The shout is high, wavering. It carries through the woods and bounces off the trees. He does hear it at first, too busy tracking. It’s Stelmaria who says his name and directs him to listen.

“Lord Asriel!” It comes again, he hears it quite clearly, and instantly he and the rest of the team converge upon the voice.

It belongs to the same young boy who answered the door to him only yesterday. It feels rather like a lifetime ago. His terrier daemon stars to yap.

“What? What is it, boy?”

“Uh-over-over there?” He points with a shaky white finger. “Beside them bushes.”

Asriel looks and sees nothing. The woods seem very, very still. Not even the birds make a noise.

“Where?” He demands.

The boy points more insistently but does not walk further in the direction. Casting him a contemptuous glance, Asriel and Stelmaria walk forward by themselves.

“Asriel.” Stelmaria gestures with her head. “There.”

It’s a sort of den; very crude and would provide inadequate shelter at best. He spies a little brown boot at first, sticking out from the leaves, followed by a white spindly leg.

“No,” Asriel breathes, feeling like he might be sick. “No.”

“Is she dead? Aw, she’s dead, en’t she?” The boy says, only to be shushed violently by another one of the servants.

Asriel doesn’t fall to his knees, not quite, but it feels like he can no longer resist gravity and is pulled very firmly downwards. Roughly, he clears away the leaves and reveals Lyra, Pantalaimon curled as an ermine next to her.

“Lyra,” he says firmly, or tries to but even he can hear the plea in his own voice. Her eye are closed, her face is white, and she has only the thinnest of cardigans covering her like a blanket. He shakes her shoulders harshly. _“Lyra!”_

 _“_ She’s alive,” Stelmaria says, her voice softer than usual and only for a moment does Asriel allow himself to wonder what he would have done if she had said the opposite.

Lyra does not stir beneath his hands. Two servants come, to try and carry her back to the college he imagines, but he fixes them with a glare, Stelmaria’s ears flattening, canine teeth showing while they hastily retreat. He slides a hand under Lyra’s neck and another under her knees, noticing as he does so how very cold she is. Stelmaria places Pantalaimon gently in Lyra’s lap.

“Do you want some help, sir?” The boy asks.

“No,” Asriel snaps as he stands. Lyra’s head lolls against his chest. It makes him feel so very afraid, the kind of which he has never been in his life. “I have her. Lead the way back.”

There’s the strongest feeling of déjà vu, and he remembers a time when Lyra weighed almost nothing and was only the length of his arm. He could fit her head into his elbow and her feet would graze the delicate skin at his wrist. The tiniest, lightest thing he had ever felt. A child born for flight.

Stelmaria looks at him strangely. She knows his deepest thoughts, things he himself does not even know, and he wonders if she knows what this feeling is for he surely doesn’t.

For a second he wonders if she’ll say something. She looks as if she wants to. But she doesn’t, and neither does he, and with Lyra and Pan in his arms they begin the long walk home.

-x-

 _Dehydration and malnourishment_ , is what they say. _Exposure to the elements. A broken ankle. Slight infection. You’re lucky you found her when you did, my Lord, otherwise the outcome may have been much worse._

They tell him that she’ll be fine, eventually. That soon she’ll be back on the roof as if nothing at all has happened. They predict a week in bed, perhaps a touch longer, before she’s up and hobbling about. She’s young and strong.

 _And foolish_ Asriel thinks but does not say. For now he can’t say anything to them and nods at their predictions until they leave him alone.

She’s been lain down in his guest suite, one with a roaring fire and a wide bed with luxurious sheets. She’s absolutely dwarfed by it and only her little white face peeks out the top of the duvet, surrounded by her messy dark hair. She looks seven, maybe eight. Not ten. It feels as though it can’t have been ten.

Lyra hasn’t awoken once. They tell him this is for the best, and he mostly agrees. As soon as she does she’ll be itching to get out, get away and back out into the open air where she feels most free. This he cannot blame her for. He’s sure she gets it from him.

Stelmaria stretches out in front of the fire, yawning as she does. Night has fallen suddenly and they do not know where to go. He stands over the bed, arms crossed, and watches his daughter breathe.

“You can’t stand over her all night,” Stelmaria mothers. “Get some sleep.”

“We’re not leaving,” he says, harsher than he means to. They could leave. Lyra isn’t going anywhere for now. But he can’t. He does not know why.

“I never said we had to leave. I said get some sleep.” She nods in the direction of the chair that she lies in front of. “There’s a blanket on the side.”

Asriel doesn’t get the blanket. He picks up the chair, as quietly as he can, and places it beside the bed. Far away, but close enough that he can see the slight rise and fall of her chest, the flutter of her eyelids in her dreams.

He crosses his legs. Stelmaria sighs. They stay up this way for the remainder of the night and well into morning.

-x-

Lyra doesn’t wake up the next day, either, and so Asriel doesn’t leave the room.

He could. He should. But he can’t.

He paces a lot, Stelmaria pacing beside him. Servants bring him food on a tray. The physician calls in to declare that there is no change.

Asriel tries to do some work at the desk, analyse some photograms and read from some books, but his mind is still drawn to the tiny child lying in his bed, not making any sound except the quiet hush of her breathing.

He sits in the chair next to her bed and feels anger, such anger he has never known. _How dare_ she make him worry like this? How dare she make him feel like this? How dare she crack open his heart and take root there, in a place he once thought nothing could ever grow again?

“You’re a foolish child,” he tells her, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Utterly foolish. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

And then where would they be?

“You have to stop this nonsense. At once.” The aching in his chest intensifies. “Do you hear me?”

The sound of her breathing, like the rustle of leaves on a spring day, is the only reply.

-x-

Unable to sleep once more, tormented by the silence, Asriel is driven to the hallways again, and finds himself at the same window, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Master once more.

It is the dead of night, so silent that the world feels as though it could be empty save for the four of them standing looking out at it. There are things that should be said, Asriel knows this. Things that have remained unspoken for too long. He can be charming when it is necessary, but words of a quiet nature, to fill this vulnerable silence, have never been his strong point.

The Master, older and by some degree wiser, goes first.

“I am glad to hear that Lyra is safe. I am told that she will be up again in no time at all.”

Asriel almost snorts, stopped only by the feeling of Stelmaria pressing against his leg. “She will need to wake up first.”

“She’s still not awake?” The Master’s eyebrows draw together briefly. Then he sighs. “Well, perhaps she just needs more time.”

This time he cannot help himself. “She needs a lot of things. This will teach her a lesson, at least.”

Both of them are quite aware that Lyra is ever so resistant to learning lessons and so neither feel the need to say it.

The Master turns to him, face half in shadow. The raven on his shoulder eyes Asriel curiously. “Have you given any thought to what I said two nights ago?”

Was it only two nights? Asriel doesn’t know if it feels like an age or no time at all. He has slept in snatches of thirty or forty minutes in a chair, only when the pull of his eyelids was unavoidable. Time seems to have no meaning anymore.

“She must stay here.” His voice is flat. “There is nowhere else for her to go.”

“There are a great many places she could go.”

“Inside these walls she is _safe.”_ The image of her lying there, so small and sick, rises unbidden into his mind. “Or she was supposed to be.”

“It is not as safe as it used to be,” The Master insists. “You may not be aware of it, but we certainly are. The pressure we face is only surmounting. Soon Lyra will be no safer here than she would be with you.” He fixes him with a questioning look. “Might that be something you would consider?”

Asriel sighs wearily, looking back out of the window. “The North is no place for a child.”

“Then maybe you should not go.”

He looks at the Master incredulously. “Excuse me?”

“The reality of it is, my Lord, is that you want Lyra protected but you do not want to protect her yourself. You refuse to see the truth in front of you and you refuse to accept your responsibility.”

“Now wait a minute-”

“If you cannot bring Lyra North then _you should not go North._ ”

Asriel studies the man. The bags under his eyes and the messiness of his hair make him look old. It’s as if the strength has been sapped from him.

“There are things, answers, that can only be found in the Aurora. Things that are bigger than all of us, more important than all of us. We spend a lifetime atoning for crimes we did not commit. For sins we did not commit. This work…” He turns away and looks back at the dark sky. “It is more important than everything.”

“You might want to be careful. If not, you will be bordering on heresy.”

“You see? This is why she must stay here.”

The Master sighs. “And know nothing about her true origins.”

Asriel nods, lips pressed grimly together. “Exactly that.”

The Master looks defeated, but he doesn’t fight anymore. “It is as you wish,”

Lyra would take away from his work. It is his responsibility to humanity to end the Magisterium’s power over them all. He does not have time for her and that, for the sentimental drivel that would be required. Besides, he doesn’t know how to be her father. He could never be. He is as sure of that as he is of the answers lying in the Aurora.

These are things, however, that he will not discuss. He turns to the Master.

“I am asking you to continue protecting my daughter,” his voice cracks ever so slightly on the last word, so unused by him it is. The next word is even more so. “ _Please.”_

The Master gives him a strange look. They have both spoken so bluntly tonight, so freely, in a way that could have never taken place when it was light. There is something about the dark, something comforting, that allows private thoughts to spill out into it without much effort.

Even still, there are limits. “Yes, Lord Asriel. Of course.” He bows, and then he is gone.

-x-

The rain batters off the windows.

All day long it has pelted down, the vaulted ceilings making the sound of thundering water echo almost unbearably throughout the buildings. Asriel sits in the chair still, Stelmaria at his side. He watches as Lyra stirs, face twitching, before her eyes open, blinking as they try to focus on the unfamiliar room.

He gives her a minute before he begins. “You’re lucky you’re alive.”

Lyra jumps a little, Pantalaimon briefly becoming a mouse and squeaking. “What happened?” She asks hoarsely.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

Lyra sighs, looking around the room as though if there were any way she could escape she would take it. Eventually she huffs. “I just wanted to go on an adventure.”

“An adventure?” His eyebrows raise.“What kind of adventure?”

“I dunno. I just wanted to see stuff. Then I got lost,” she mumbles, dropping his eyes. “And then I hurt my ankle and couldn’t walk no more. Was just meant to be fun.”

“Adventures are serious, Lyra,” he says, his tone hard. “They are not meant to be taken lightly. They require preparation and planning and you have to ensure that you have all of the correct equipment and provisions.” He fixes her with a glare. “Do you understand me?”

Her bottom lip sticks out. “Yes, uncle.”

“Good. You had half the college out looking for you. You could have died. Adventures are fine and well until somebody gets hurt.”

“You go on adventures all the time!”

“I am an adult and I am significantly more experienced than you. You are a child.”

Lyra’s cheeks are flushed at the injustice of it all. “I bet you went on a load of adventures as a kid,” she protests. “And I’m betting nobody ever told you not to do it.”

He did and they didn’t but that’s besides the point. It was a different time. Nobody was looking for him.

“You will not run off like that again. Am I making myself clear?”

Again the bottom lip. Again with the, “yes, uncle.”

Stelmaria lets out a rumble and he softens a fraction. “When you are feeling better some navigation lessons may be in order.”

She seems to brighten. “Really?”

‘Yes. You won’t be able to walk on your ankle for quite a while so there is an ample amount of time for you to learn without it affecting the rest of your studies.”

She huffs. There are lamps burning all around the room, they have been all day because of the dark sky, and they make her glow softly. He is in danger of forgetting himself, for the lines blur between the past and the present.

He stands up and passes her a glass of water, helping her to sit up in the bed while she drinks it greedily.

‘Not too fast,” he chides. “Or you’ll be sick and then you shall have to clean it up.”

She finishes the glass with a stubborn glint in her eye, though much slower than she was, and when she finishes she passes the back of her hand across her mouth.

“Why are you here? I en’t seen you in ages.”

He sits back down. “I had work.”

“Oh. So you en’t here for me, then.”

“No.” But because he cannot leave and leave the look on her face behind as he normally would, he says, “My visit was a surprise. The Master told me as soon as I arrived what had happened to you.”

Lyra just nods.

Asriel sighs. “You will be alright,” he tells her softly. “There is no lasting damage done.”

“I didn’t mean to make everyone worry and that,” she says mournfully. “I was just sick of being in here and learning from books.”

He once felt the same way when he was younger. He used to long for the snow and ice and much preferred being outdoors than stuck inside with his tutors. When Stelmaria settled it was no longer an issue.

“You can learn a great many things from books. You need to have a balance.”

“But it’s _boring._ I don’t care about geography or Arabic or anbarology.” She looks out the window, at the rain slamming into the panes. “I want to be out there.”

“It’s all connected, Lyra. Things you learn from books have real applications in the world, but you won’t see them unless you know what they are. And they can be quite wonderful. It would be a shame if you missed them simply because you weren’t willing to _learn._ ”

She stares at him, wide-eyed. He is suddenly very aware that this is the most they have spoken in a long time. He shakes his head.

“I think that’s enough for now. I shall leave you to rest.” He goes to get out of the chair.

“No! Don’t go.” She worries her bottom lip. “Stay. Please?”

“Very well.” He lowers himself back down. The child is recovering, he reasons with himself. For now, he will stay.

They sit there awkwardly for a moment, and Asriel realises he has no idea what to say to her. He knows her spirit, her fierce determination and stubbornness, but he doesn’t know about her life here: her favourite food, her favourite colour, what rooftop she likes best. That kind of information has always seemed so useless before.

“Tell me, what have you been learning in your lessons? Before you ran away.”

But she isn’t listening. She’s looking out the window again, Pantalaimon snuggled to her chest as an ermine once more. “What does my name mean?” She asks, sounding far away.

“What?” He laughs shortly, lips quirking up into an almost smile. “What are you on about?”

“My name,” she says simply. “What does it mean?”

His eyebrows draw together. “Why do you wish to know?”

“The Librarian was teaching me about it, about how names have power. Like ours is _Belacqua_ and that means something and so I asked him if first names mean something, too and he said they did.” She shakes her head. “But he don’t know what mines means. He said I should ask you.”

“Oh he did, did he?” But to speak lightly is an effort. If they are not careful then secrets are going to be revealed, things he would rather weren’t. “The man is right. Names do have power.”

 _That’s why you have mine_ a buried part of him thinks. _That is why, even now, even after all that happened, you have my name. There’s nothing else I can give you._

Lyra’s eyes are bright. He can’t imagine how he ever thought she looked so sick only hours before.

“Do you know what my name means?” She says hungrily. “Do you know who gave it to me?”

“Why would I know that?”

“You’re my uncle,” she tells him, like he needs reminding of it. “And he said to ask you.”

It’s too much. There’s a quiet noise from Stelmaria, something low and audible only to him.

“This is getting sentimental,” he warns. “I think we should stop.”

“No, it’s not,” Lyra protests. “It’s a question. You’re my uncle - you’re the only family I’ve got. If you don’t know then nobody else is going to.”

His temper, never a reliable thing, begins to flare.

“Do you think I want to revisit the past? To bring up painful memories that half the time I only just manage to forget? It was not just you who lost something.”

But Lyra is not so easily subdued. “It en’t fair!” She cries.

“Life isn’t fair, Lyra.”

“But-”

“No buts. We all have things we wish weren’t true, things we wish we weren’t or things we wish we could have. It is unfortunate, but it is just the way of things. The sooner you accept it the better it is.”

Lyra crosses her arms. “I won’t accept it. I won’t.”

“Then more fool you.”

They sit there staring at each other, breathing heavily. It is Asriel who looks away first. This ability of hers to go in deep and to draw out whatever dregs reside there… it drives him mad.

He understands that Lyra’s knowledge about herself is vague, understands her need for answers. He can’t say he wouldn’t be like this himself. But he knows better than her.

He scrubs a hand down his face, looks back to Lyra who’s staring out of the window again, and it’s out of his mouth before he can stop it.

“It was your father. Your father named you.”

Lyra turns to him and says nothing, but he recognises the greedy look on her face. Against his better judgement, he decides to give her more.

“It comes from the sky. The stars. I expect that’s why he gave it to you. He knew, even then, that you would turn out the way you have, roaming the rooftops at any free chance you get.”

“My father…” Lyra draws out the words, holds them as if they are special, as if she is too afraid to let them go because they might never be felt again. “He named me…”

“Yes. He did.”

There are tears glistening in her eyes and he wants to tell her to stop it, that Lyra Belacqua doesn’t cry. He would suddenly like nothing more than to leave and he feels Stelmaria eyeing him, wondering what he’ll do next. In truth he doesn’t know.

“Did my mother like it?”

He never deigned to ask Marisa’s opinion. She turned her back and washed her hands. Her opinion never mattered.

“I expect so.”

Then Lyra fixes him with a look, such a look that he has never seen on her face before. One of pure vulnerability, as if she is showing her whole heart. It makes him nervous. People aren’t open and honest with Asriel, they do not tell him what is in their hearts. It’s better for everybody that they don’t.

But Lyra is young and she sees him differently to the way everybody else does. She sees him as something _more._

“Do you... do you think that they loved me?”

An airship accident. He told her that her parents died in an airship accident. He must remember that. Every muscle in his body feels tight as he forces himself to sit here and endure this conversation against his nature.

He sighs. “Doesn’t every parent love their child?

“Yeah but-” and he watches as she tries to articulate the question to get the answer she wants, the answer only he can give and the answer he cannot. “Did they love _me?_ Or do you think they would love me now, if they could meet me?”

This lie was meant to be simple, to shield them all from complicated truths. Her questions force him to think about things, things he would rather not. This entire experience has left him raw, in a way that not even the affair did all those years ago. It’s different when it’s your own blood, someone you made. It cuts deeper and bleeds longer and never heals completely.

He has to put a stop to it, otherwise he’s in danger of falling down a deep dark tunnel that he may never crawl his way out of.

“Why does it matter?” His voice is not as strong as he would like. “They’re gone. What does it matter what they would have thought?”

“I dunno. I don’t know anything about them and it’s nice, en’t it, to think that they’d love me. That-that at least someone would love me.”

The last part is mumbled in one exhale, something he doesn’t think that was meant for him, and so he pretends he hasn’t heard.

“It doesn’t matter, Lyra, what people think of you or what people feel about you. What matters is what _you_ do, how you choose to live your life. There are things much bigger than thoughts or feelings out there.”

It’s all he has: science and logic. Thoughts and feelings took everything from him.

They are silent for a while, the sound of thundering rain filling the space between them. Asriel rises, Stelmaria with him. Awkwardly he lays his hand on Lyra’s head.

“Get some sleep,” he commands. “It will help you heal.”

Lyra shuffles obediently back under the duvet. She blinks up at him. “Can I come with you on your next adventure?”

He withdraws his hand, stares at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “No,” he tells her. “You are a child.”

“When I’m older then. When I’m all grown up. Can I come with you then?”

By the time Lyra has grown he hopes that his work will have paid off, that he will have discovered everything he needs to know in order to accomplish his goals.

“Yes,” he lies. “When you are older.”

He is halfway out the door when something akin to insanity seizes him and he pauses, facing back at his daughter who glows gold in the lamplight and is much too small for the bed she lies in.

“For what it’s worth, Lyra, I believe you were loved.”

He nods at her and shuts the door, but not before he sees the smile on her face, the likes of which people would die for. It all feels justifiable to him then.

-x-

They go to an empty room to sleep. This one is not expecting guests and it is cold and musty-smelling. Asriel’s bags are dumped in the corner and he searches through them for his coat, lying on the single bed and settling underneath the coat like a blanket. Stelmaria lies on the floor next to him.

“Your lies almost got us caught,” she sighs, sounding as though she is taking to a wayward child. “I hope you have a plan for that.”

Asriel is the type to plan experiments and expeditions, but nothing to do with emotions. If he were, he suspects they might never have ended up in this position in the first place.

“It’ll be fine. We shall be leaving soon.”

“You’re the one who doesn’t want her knowing anything. She is a smart girl. She will be able to work it out.”

“I doubt it. Lyra won’t see what she doesn’t want to.”

Stelmaria scoffs. “You’re deluding yourself.”

He looks down at her, her amber eyes visible in the dark. “Am I now?”

“You care for her. If everybody else can see that then it may be your downfall.” She rests her head down, watching the door now. “We have important work to do. Don’t forget that.”

“I haven’t,” he snaps.

“You must choose, Asriel: the girl or the science. You cannot have both.” She yawns. “You know that.”

“I can’t have Lyra,” he says wearily, and it’s funny because he’s never minded before, and after this moment he may never mind again. He’d just like the choice. They’ve taken all his choices away and left him only one, and though he knows it’s what he must do it would still be better if he had the _choice._ “I’ve never had Lyra.”

“Well there you go. That’s your answer.”

Asriel exhales slowly, looking up at the vaulted ceiling. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

There’s a murmur from Stelmaria. “I thought that would be the case.”

Of course she did. There’s nothing more to be said after that.

-x-

He sleeps, eventually, and falls into a dream.

He dreams of Lyra, of holding her in his arms when she was six months old, stocky as she was with dark hair and flailing fists that accidentally catch him on the jaw. The floodwater is rising around them and he holds Lyra close to him, her head on his shoulder, as he tries to wade through it. The water keeps rising faster and faster, and he holds Lyra higher and higher, determined to keep on going, knowing if he just keeps on moving then things will be alright. But he can’t keep moving, the current is too strong, and no matter how fast he goes, how high Lyra is held, the water still reaches her and he screams her name but it is lost among the swell.

He wakes in a cold sweat, eyes bolting open. His lungs try to drag in air as if they will never get to do so again and it’s like there’s still water in there, making it hard to breathe. That ache in his chest is back, constricting it, and his gasp loudly reverberates around the room. It feels like his heart is being carved out with a spoon, his chest being bluntly cracked open and he passes his hand over his face and isn’t surprised when it comes away wet.

There’s no going back to sleep now. He doesn’t even want to try. Instead he lies in the bed, hands behind his head, and watches out the window as the sky turns from black to orange and suddenly the whole world is awake, ready to start again.

-x-

Leaving is harder than it has ever been before.

It’s dawn when he begins readying the airship. As long as he keeps on moving then the tiredness and the reason for it will not touch him. He packs equipment that he didn’t take last time, stocks up on food and books and fuel to take to the North. Stelmaria checks it all over, prowling around, making sure everything is satisfactory.

Asriel leaves the gift he brought for Lyra on her pillow in her attic room. A walrus tusk with some carvings on it and a photogram of the landscape of the North, to help her draw on the wall with at least some accuracy. He looks at the wall without meaning to, seeing all of the postcards he has sent next to her crude drawings of mountains and bears and he is transfixed by it, staring at it for longer than he should until Stelmaria nudges him to move.

He peeks on Lyra, gently opening the door so as not to wake her. The dawn light spills into the room, giving everything a brilliant touch of gold. Walking in as lightly as he dares, he stands at the foot of the bed and watches her and her daemon sleep, sure that she’s having some kind of marvellous adventure in her dreams.

“Will you wake her to say goodbye?”

He doesn’t tear his eyes from Lyra as he whispers, “No. We need to get going.”

Clearing his throat, he walks away, never looking back.

It’s only when they’re in the airship, when it’s rising steadily with the sun over the buildings of Jordan College, that he’s able to breathe easy again, exhaling all of the turmoil he has experienced over the past days, although the ache does not subside completely. Though he would never admit it, he’s been shaken to his core, felt things he never thought he could and briefly he has had thoughts of another life, thoughts he would never dared to have entertained before. A life with him and Marisa and their fierce daughter, untroubled by the Magisterium, by sin… A life in which they could have had it all.

The rising sun is brilliant before him, bringing a new day but not a new life. He is who he always has been and there is no changing that, not now. No, his work must be completed and he must carry on, regardless of what happens around him. It is his duty to humanity and he has vowed that he will carry it out, no matter the cost.

Stelmaria comes to stand beside him. “This is for the best,” she tells him, tail swaying side to side.

“I know,” he agrees, but he cannot close the door. They watch as Oxford gently disappears beneath them, and it isn’t long before it is gone completely, lost beneath the clouds.

He shuts the door. A noise comes from his throat, something irregular, but almost at once the sound is lost, drowned out by the thrumming of the airship as it flies on through the empty expanse of the sky.


End file.
